A traveling museum of gum
Teri Meier isn’t sure where her love of gum began, whether it was her first pack of Clove gum, or discovering a fruit basket filled with chewing gum disguised as blackberries, but she’s now the curator of a traveling exhibit called the Chewing Gum Chronicles Exhibit. She’s convinced her dad to build a jukebox for (you guessed it) bubblegum pop, and features gum memorabilia including classic gum advertising and Wrigley Field to gum art, including pennies that have been pressed into Seattle’s famous gum wall (which we’ve visited a few times here at AndrewsGumWorld) to information about Les Levine’s 18-carat gold chewing gum sculpture from the 1970s.
You can read more about the exhibit here, including these details on Teri’s life, and the question of why a gum exhibit, anyway?
Terri Meier, Curator of the Chewing Gum Chronicles Exhibit, has yet to answer that question. Maybe it’s her first pack of Clove gum or that miniature fruit basket filled with intricate individual blackberries disguised as gum. Meier recalls that collecting gum became an act of perservation rather than a desire to chew.
Meier graduated from Iowa State University and majored in Telecommunications. Little did she know that her background in public relations, advertising, and her enthusiasm for history would change the future of chewing gum. “I’m not quite sure when I decided to appoint myself as Curator and research, design, build, and finance the Chewing Gum Chronicles Exhibit. Some people like to golf, I found pleasure unwrapping the history of chewing gum.”
Meier admits it became an enterprise starting with her family. “Asking my father to travel 2,000 miles to build a bright pink bubble gum juke box was bordering on insanity.” Together, they built six other interactive displays. Her mom, sister, brother-in-law, and niece scour the Midwest in search of the perfect novelty gum for the exhibit. “It’s amazing how many people love gum. From authors and artists to Vegas casino owners, everyone had a story to tell.”